BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1348
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Date of Hearing: April 23, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Das Williams, Chair
AB 1348 (John A. Pérez) - As Introduced: February 22, 2013
SUBJECT : SUBJECT : Postsecondary education: California Higher
Education Authority.
SUMMARY : Establishes the California Higher Education
Authority, its governing board and its responsibilities.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Establishes the California Higher Education Authority
(Authority) to be governed by a 13-member board of directors
as follows:
a) Nine representatives of the general public, excluding
employees and governing board members of a California
postsecondary education institution, appointed to staggered
six-year terms, as follows:
i) Three members appointed by the Governor subject to
confirmation by a majority of the membership of the
Senate,
ii) Three members appointed by the Speaker of the
Assembly, and,
iii) Three members appointed by the Senate Committee on
Rules.
b) Four student representatives, as specified, appointed
for one-year terms, commencing on July 1, 2014.
2)States the intent of the Legislature that the appointment
process of the first members of the board of directors be
completed before July 1, 2014.
3)Provides the board of directors with actual and necessary
travel expenses and one hundred dollars ($100) for each day he
or she is attending to the official business of the authority.
4)Authorizes the board of directors to elect a chairperson from
its membership and to enter into agreements with any public or
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private agency, officer, person, institution, corporation,
association, or foundation for the performance of acts or for
the furnishing of services, facilities, materials, goods,
supplies, or equipment.
5)Requires the board of directors to appoint an executive
officer of the authority, who shall serve at the pleasure of
the board of directors and is authorized to appoint additional
staff of the authority as necessary.
6)Grants the Authority the following responsibilities:
a) Developing, presenting, and monitoring postsecondary
education goals for the state, including, but not
necessarily limited to, monitoring and reporting on the
progress of the postsecondary segments toward their
long-term goals;
b) Measuring and reporting on the efficiency and
effectiveness of the postsecondary education segments in
serving the state's needs;
c) Making recommendations about how to improve the
performance of the postsecondary education segments;
d) Pursuing an integrated approach to the state's overall
postsecondary education policy by including private
postsecondary education within the Authority's
jurisdiction;
e) Exercising an oversight and advisory role in
postsecondary education capital outlay decisions;
f) Developing information in order to assist state and
local policymakers and consumers in making cost-effective
investments in postsecondary education and training to meet
the long-term goals of a strong state economy and vibrant
communities;
g) Developing and recommending strategic finance policy to
the Governor and the Legislature on topics including, but
not necessarily limited to, the allocation of state
appropriations among the postsecondary education segments,
student fee policy, and student financial aid;
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h) Developing and presenting basic policy parameters for
capacity development or realignment, including, but not
necessarily limited to, expansion or realignment of
enrollment capacity among or within the postsecondary
education segments, to meet the state's higher education
goals;
i) Reviewing and making recommendations to the Governor and
the Legislature relating to major capacity decisions, such
as changes in mission or the establishment of new campuses
or centers, that are to be financed with state
appropriations or state-approved student fees; and,
j) Acting as a clearinghouse for postsecondary education
information and as a primary source of information for the
Legislature, the Governor, and other agencies, and
developing and maintaining a comprehensive database that
does all of the following:
i) Ensures comparability of data from diverse sources,
ii) Supports longitudinal studies of individual students
as they progress through the state's postsecondary
educational institutions, as specified,
iii) Is compatible with the California School Information
System and the student information systems developed and
maintained by the public segments of higher education, as
appropriate,
iv) Provides Internet access to data, as appropriate, to
the sectors of higher education,
v) Provides each of the postsecondary educational
segments access to the data made available to the
Authority for purposes of the database, in order to
support, most efficiently and effectively, statewide,
segmental, and individual campus educational research
information needs,
vi) Complies with the federal Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g) relating
to the disclosure of personally identifiable information
concerning students and does not make available any
personally identifiable information received from a
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postsecondary educational institution concerning students
for any regulatory purpose unless the institution has
authorized the Authority to provide that information on
behalf of the institution, and,
vii) Provides 30-day notification to the chairpersons of
the appropriate legislative policy and budget committees
of the Legislature, to the Director of Finance, and to
the Governor before making any significant changes to the
student information contained in the database.
7)Transfers to the Authority, on or after July 1, 2013, data
management responsibilities granted to the former California
Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), as specified in
existing law, and authorizes the Authority to disclose or
dispose of data it receives or maintains under this section
only as specifically authorized to do so in existing law, as
specified.
8)Allows the authority to require the governing boards and the
institutions of public postsecondary education to submit data
on plans and programs, costs, selection and retention of
students, enrollments, plant capacities, and other matters
pertinent to effective planning, policy development, and
articulation and coordination, and shall furnish information
concerning these matters to the Governor and to the
Legislature as requested by them.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown; however, according to the Assembly
Appropriations Committee analysis on a similar measure in 2012,
in its last full year of operation, CPEC's General Fund
operating budget was $1.9 million for the equivalent of 18
positions. The new authority established in this bill would
likely have a budget of similar magnitude. Additionally, the
authority would incur one-time information technology costs in
the range of $200,000.
COMMENTS : Background . AB 770 (Vasconcellos), Chapter 1187,
Statutes of 1973, created CPEC and made it responsible for the
planning and coordination of postsecondary education. CPEC was
charged with providing analysis, advice, and recommendations to
the Legislature and the governor on statewide policy and funding
priorities. As part of his 2011-12 budget, Governor Brown
proposed eliminating CPEC. Both houses rejected this proposal,
but the governor exercised his line item veto to remove all
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General Fund support for CPEC, describing the commission as
"ineffective." In his veto message, however, the governor
acknowledged the need for coordinating and guiding state higher
education policy and requested that stakeholders explore
alternative ways these functions could be fulfilled.
On November 18, 2011, CPEC closed its office and ceased
operations. Its federal Teacher Quality Improvement grant
program was transferred to the California Department of
Education (CDE) and its extensive data resources were
transferred to the California Community Colleges (CCC)
Chancellor's Office.
Over the last decade, a substantial number of policy analysts,
legislators, and researchers expressed dissatisfaction with the
effectiveness of CPEC and its capacity-in part due to budget
reductions-to exercise its statutory responsibilities. Another
contributing factor to CPEC's perceived lack of effectiveness
was its governance. CPEC was seen to be dominated by the
segment representatives who advocated a consensus approach to
decision making. In a 2003 review of CPEC, the Legislative
Analyst's Office (LAO) contended that the role CPEC was expected
to play "requires a critical perspective on higher education
issues and sometimes arriving at conclusions with which the
segments may strongly disagree."
Need for the bill . According to the author, "Coordination,
oversight and accountability in higher education are key to
ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being utilized in the most
efficient and effective manner possible and that students are
progressing toward their educational goals without encountering
unnecessary barriers. Without CPEC, the State of California is
left without a steward for the public interest with respects to
California higher education. In addition, in CPEC's absence
there is no state entity to address the multitude of issues
raised by the Legislative Analyst in their various reports."
The LAO in their January 2012 report, Improving Higher
Education Oversight, contends the state needs higher education
oversight that enables policymakers and others to monitor how
efficiently and effectively the postsecondary system is serving
the state's needs, and make changes to improve its performance.
The Analyst recommended that the new entity have independence
from the public higher education segments, have a more unified
governing board appointment process and be assigned limited and
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clear responsibilities. AB 1348 is based on the LAO
recommendations.
Why is coordination important ? A coordinated approach can help
policymakers consider the higher education system as a whole and
develop policies and budgets that maximize the system's value to
the state, which becomes increasingly critical in times of
limited resources. If the segments' activities are
complementary and they operate as an integrated system in which
each part adds value that is unique to its role, then their
combined efforts may produce more than what the institutions can
achieve independently. Examples of coordinated activities
include easing the transfer process, regional planning to ensure
local needs are met, and joint degrees to take advantage of the
unique strengths of each system.
Rethinking the role of coordination . Beginning with the 1960
Master Plan for Higher Education, coordination has been viewed
as a critical function. While its coordinating entity evolved
over time and numerous Master Plan reviews, California's
approach to coordination has been indirect, relying mostly on
well-defined missions and eligibility pools to guide the
development of higher education institutions. This approach
worked well during several decades of expansion, but its
effectiveness has declined over the last several decades,
leaving institutions to pursue their unique interests with
insufficient mechanisms to advance the state's priorities. As a
result, researchers have called for realigning the functions of
coordinating bodies and provided testimony before the
Legislature on several occasions, including before the Joint
Committee on the Master Plan in 2010 and before a joint hearing
of the Assembly Higher Education Committee and Budget
Subcommittee on Education Finance on February 22, 2012. In its
January 2010 and January 2012 reports, LAO recommended
California's coordinating body focus on the following:
1)Defining statewide goals and using them as a framework for
accountability.
2)Strengthening coordination, as follows:
a) Align funding formulas with state goals,
b) Simplify articulation and transfer,
c) Improve oversight of major policy decisions,
d) Reform program approval process, and,
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e) Consider regional coordination.
3)Rebuilding state policy leadership capacity, as follows:
a) Ensure the coordinating body's independence form the
executive and legislative branches and higher education
segments,
b) Revise the appointment process for the coordinating
body's governing board,
c) Assign clear responsibility for shepherding the public
agenda, and,
d) Create a more comprehensive statewide student database.
Efforts to establish state goals . There have been several
legislative attempts to develop statewide goals. Most recent
efforts include SB 721 (Lowenthal, 2012), was vetoed by Governor
Brown would have established statewide goals for guiding budget
and policy decisions in higher education, required the LAO to
convene a working group, as specified, to develop and recommend
specific metrics for measuring progress toward these goals, and
required the LAO, beginning in 2014 and as part of the annual
budget process, to annually report on and present an assessment
of progress toward the statewide goals and recommendations for
legislative action. Additionally, AB 2 (Portantino, 2011), was
held on the Senate Appropriations Suspense File, would have
established an accountability framework.
Concerns over data storage . CPEC maintained significant
independent student records from the public higher education
segments, dating as far back as 1992 and linked across the
segments via a unique student identifier. CCC is currently
housing this database; however, federal privacy officials
believe this arrangement does not comply with federal privacy
laws unless CCC is designated a statewide education authority
with assigned responsibility for data collection and program
evaluation. Such designation would likely require a statutory
change. Further, under the current arrangement access to the
data is limited, since each segment has control over access to
its own student records contained within the database. Thus, it
does not appear that the current database storage is a long-term
solution, and a robust, useable database is critical in order to
track the state's progress in meeting its education goals.
Related legislation . AB 2190 (John A. Pérez, 2012), which was
held on the Assembly Committee Appropriations Suspense File, was
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virtually identical to this measure. SB 1138 (Liu, 2012), which
was held on the Senate Committee Appropriations Suspense File,
would have required, on and after January 1, 2013, that the CDE,
in coordination with the State Board of Education, succeed to
the data management responsibilities of CPEC with respect to the
comprehensive database referenced above, as specified.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Teachers Association
California Federation of Teachers
Los Angeles Community College District
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960